Conventionally, when a strut type wheel suspension system is used, a damper is received in a damper housing formed in the vehicle body so as to have an open end facing downward. A damper base consisting of a plate member and formed with a plurality of mounting holes is welded to an upper closed end of the damper housing from above. Threaded bolts extending upward from the upper end of the damper are passed through the mounting holes, and nuts are threaded onto the bolts so as to secure the upper end of the damper to the vehicle body.
In such a damper mounting structure, as the left and right damper bases are individually attached to the corresponding parts, the positional precisions of the damper bases or the upper ends of the dampers may differ from each other, and this complicates the adjustment of the geometry of the right and left wheel suspension systems. To overcome this problem, it has been proposed to extend a dash upper panel to the upper surfaces of the damper bases, and weld a cross member extending short of the damper bases to the dash upper panel so as to jointly define a closed cross section. See JP 2006-327445A (patent document 1), for instance.
According to the invention disclosed in patent document 1, because the dash upper panel is reinforced by the cross member, and extends adjacent to the damper bases, the dash upper panel can be reinforced, and the mounting precision of the upper end of the damper can be improved.
However, according to this prior art, the cross member cannot be extended up to the main part of the damper bases because the threaded bolts for securing the upper end of the damper to the damper base would interfere with the end part of the cross member if that were the case. Therefore, this prior art is only a partial solution to this problem.